Finished Contemporary Kitchen

momqsFebruary 28, 2011

Thank you sooo much to all of those who have spent so many hours on this forum posting pictures and providing advice and feedback. Our kitchen was 99 % finished by Thanksgiving (about 8 weeks from when we started) and then it took 2 months for the last piece to fall into place. We had an amazing contractor who was here every day and provided great creative ideas. Their bid was about 10% higher than the our other choice but we felt in the end it was the best money we spent because they always had great ideas when decisions had to be made.

Update our builder grade kitchen and open the space, and see more of the outside. Add a mudroom (I don't have good photos of this).

The project

We gutted our kitchen, knocked down a wall between the breakfast room and the family room, took down our upper cabinets and created a window wall, and also added a mudroom by taking over 1/2 of the 3rd bay in our garage.

The details

Cabinets: Custom - Wellsford Cabinetry (PA)- Cherry w/ a Shaker Door

Appliances: Everything is Thermador except the hood which is Modern Aire.

It's beautiful! The wall of windows was a great idea - it transforms the space. I love your cabinet color and style and the gorgeous stone. The wall color works well with your cabinets and stone. I love the curved hood cover and curved end of the island - nice details. How tall is the counter over your microwave? Does the MW under a raised counter work well for you? How do you like the Thermador appliances so far?

Really nice. I love the details that make the whole thing hang together - the matching faucets, the great backsplash/accent tile combination and the pendants. Your cabs are also gorgeous - so warm and rich looking. Great job.

Thia room has a very consistent muse. The deep color of the cabs wouldn't work if the room didn't have so much light from those fabulous windows. Good combo.

The oversized handles are a good way to emphasize the scale--they don't try to miniaturize the large living and working area. The hood is a really artistic feature--goes 'way beyond function. The pattern of all those angles, lines, and bent lines is excellent--consistent design worthy of an expert.

Tell us what is your glass at cab tops?

How useful do you find that smaller sink to be? I like its position outside the inner work area--chopped veg goes to the right to range or left to salad making, yes? We should note that you've flip-flopped the usual island layout, with stools on inner side. Do people really sit at those stools? Any collision in outer aisle with walk-through outsiders while cooks chop?

Ahhhhhh (sigh), thank you for the beautiful pictures!
You must have posted the photo of the island with the oven wall behind it on another thread, because it's already in my "inspiration" folder.
It's even more wonderful when seen with the rest of the kitchen. The window wall is breathtaking!
I'm afraid of going to the ceiling with my darker contemporary cabinets but yours are beautiful. IT looks like you have 9' ceilings, is that right? How big is your main kitchen area?

Thanks for the amazing comments! The hood comments are great! My greatest design disappointment is the hood - I wanted a half circle curve but there wasn't anyway to do that. I'm so happy to hear that it works!

@Bee - the piano moved to another room. I miss having it in the kitchen while the kids are practicing, but it's totally worth it.

@KaySD - we really like the Thermador appliances. It seems like so much thought was put into the usability of them and the company has been very responsive. The MW counter is 42 inches and it's great. However the location of the MW is my least favorite thing in the kitchen. DH would like me to mention that the ice bucket gets jammed sometimes - he likes crushed ice and we've had to bend a blade back twice (but Thermador did send us a new bucket (free) for when it breaks for good).

@florantha - wow! I think I'm blushing! The glass is just a simple frosted glass from the cabinet maker - I don't know what it's called.

The stools are on the inner side of the island because the mudroom/garage & laundry room are through the door next to the ovens, so it's a high traffic walkway. We sit at the stools all of the time and find that even when we have company we wind up at the stools after dinner.

We use the prep (small) sink all of the time. We generally have at least two people working in the kitchen together so it's fabulous to the have that sink. Generally things that are going to the stove go right and things like salads and apps go to the left.

@jillsee - PB still has the stools: Meryl We have the 27" square which is great with little kids because they can sit comfortably at the counter.

@cindaintx - thanks! Our ceilings are 9' and we got 450sq feet of maple floor, so I'm guessing that the kitchen part is about 350 sq ft. I think if you have enough light you can go to the ceiling, but I also think the glass helps.

DH thinks I can get better pictures of the mudroom than I have so I'll try to get them tomorrow when it's light, but it's not nearly as glamorous as the kitchen. I went for function function and more function! We really had hoped to upgrade the laundry room with a nice countertop and new sink but when budget cuts had to be made those went and all of the nice details in the mudroom went with them.

Everyone's commented on the big significant things, so I'll just add: I love the little bubbles in the backsplash that connect to the big expanse of them over the stove! So unusual to have watery bubble vibe over a stove -- cools down and opens the space even more.

But those little bubbles are where I know someone was having fun : ) Who thought of those?

Fabulous, momqs!!!! Clean & contemporary but warm and classic all at the same time. I have to say that I'm partial, b/c I've actually seen your renovation in person -- and although the pics are wonderful, they can't do the quartzite or backsplash or your floors and cabinets justice. I wish you could capture in a photo the way light shines thru your translucent island --amazing! And I just love your mudroom (especially cubbies, which you know I'm copying!), so you must post more pics! Congratulations on the transformation -- and hugs!

The bubbles (big and little) are all me. I was up until the wee hours putting together the sets for my contractor onto pieces of tape. I cut up on 12 x 12 sheet and then created each set one bubble at a time. So much fun!

DH wasn't sure about it but was a good sport and just let me go with it. They make me smile every day.

I seriously love this kitchen. As a person who went into mosaics (still amateur at this point, but serious) because of discovering my love for playing with tile during my kitchen remodel in 2004 (WAY back when spike owned the place), I'm so glad to hear you made those little pieces yourself.

But *all* the choices are so dead on. I imagine your contractor/fabricator are taking pics for their portfolios? : )

(small side question: what is your thinking about the transition from one kind of wood flooring to the other, at the end of the kitchen? Are you planning to change out the darker floor at some point? Or keep it as is?)

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! Great design and use of space. Of course I am a total Cherry quartzite lover so I could move in without a hitch! Wish I could have put in those windows! Looks like it will be a dream to entertain in. Very well done! Enjoy :-)

Wow! I love your new kitchen. It is spectacular! I love the combination of lovely crisp white princess and marble with the warm cherry shaker. The lights are fantastic. And overall the space is absolutely perfect. Thank you for sharing.

@flyleft - I don't love the transition when you look at it from far away, but the family room is a bit warmer than the kitchen in tone and the floor reminds you of that when you walk on it. It's not a big enough deal for me to change it right now, but someday I would love to put Brazillian Cherry floors there (we have them in DH's office which is the angled door you see to the left of the TV). Then I think it would really make that room warm, but I'm not sure they Brazillian Cherry takes precedence over the new AC we'll need in the next year or so.

I am struggling with where to place a MW in our design, so could you please tell me what it is about the location you dislike? Is it the height, or is it just too far from where you want to use it?

If you don't mind saying, what is the approximate price per sq ft you paid to have that gorgeous White Pearl installed? I am realy loving the white quartzites I see on GW, but have not seen any locally yet so I am wondering what it will do to my budget. I would love to see the translucent effect Bellacucina mentioned.

@kaysd We moved the MW about 4 times during the design phase. It was the hardest appliance to place. We don't like the height. We're used to it at about 4' off the ground and would have preferred it there - DH is 6'3 so he has to kneel down if he actually wants to see what's in there. Mostly we're reheating something like soup or tea so it's not a big deal and I think it would be better it it weren't in the walkway and we could be across the room looking into it, I would put it there again in this layout, so it's not that bad but I certainly don't love it.

The quartzite was about $110/sq ft and we got a deal. We really negotiated on the price - it was originally priced at $130/sq ft.

It blew the budget but it was worth EVERY PENNY!

The translucent effect is way cool but I don't think I can show it in a photo. Basically where it looks grey (the veining) it's actually clear. You can put light under the veins and it will show through. It's a fun party trick!

Here is the mudroom. We took over 1/2 of the 3rd garage bay for this. Behind it in the garage we mounted some of the old cabinets and made a workshop.

This is my clutter room! We have a counter that accommodates after school backpack emptying, mail, newspapers, store returns, things awaiting pickup or dropoff, etc.... Everybody has a bin on the counter and we have a station for things that need to get put back into the garage.

We have cubbies for backpacks, briefcases, shoes, etc....

I wanted the kitchen to stay serene and free of clutter and my answer was to create a place for that type of stuff. The good news is that it's working! This room is regularly cluttered (this picture is on a good day) and the kitchen is regularly not cluttered - the things that clutter the kitchen (like projects or meals) get cleaned up immediately.

Some details:
The door between the cubbies and countertop goes to the garage. The door to the kitchen is across from the Alarm panel. Next to the alarm panel is where the house used to end.

The cabinets and window are from the old kitchen. (including the cabinet built into the wall above the counter).

The floor was pulled up from the old kitchen and relaid here.

The countertop is formica and the beadboard is from Home Depot. The cubbies are made of MDF.

The cubby boxes are from Crate and Barrel. Each of my children has a cubby and DH and I share the large middle cubby.

I mentioned this before but I just put it here again for completeness - we wanted a matching counter over the W/D and we wanted to get a new laundry sink, but we had to cut the budget and they didn't make it.

Such great windows!! And I'm drooling over your countertops. If I'd seen your backsplash before I did my kitchen, it'd be my inspiration. Love those rounds (bubbles) behind your range. I can completely relate to putting your own custom sets together...I made my own combo of 5/8" marble tiles for ours. So much more special that way. Very cool. And quite a change from before! Congratulations.

I just keep coming back to look at this kitchen. I find the color/material combinations so serene.

Just a couple more questions, if you don't mind, Momqs. I'm trying to figure out whether or not to put cabinets over the 7' high Thermador columns. How high off the floor did you end the wood door cabinets (uppers and full height pieces) and how tall are the glass front cabinets? What do you store in those high glass front cabinets and is that storage space useful for you? DH wants to stop at about 7.5' with molding (which would be less expensive), but I love the look of your glass uppers.

I have all of my china, my crystal, vases, large bowls, and a few other pretty things up there.

We are currently w/o a dining room because we sacrificed it to a playroom, so it's awesome to have all of that stuff upstairs, but we did not put the cabinets in for storage. We have more of that than we know what to do with. We put them in for aesthetics and because we didn't want to dust the tops of cabinets. It was only after the kitchen was done that we figured out what to do with them.

I'm not sure if you are doing custom cabs or now, but we decided to put the uppers in after we had our price so we worked with them to cut in other places to afford the uppers. It was sooo worth it. We just LOVE them.

Thanks!! The pulls are from the cabinet maker and I never got the brand, but we had to replace our fridge pulls with something heftier and in the process we ordered Hafele pulls which matched exactly (and thus went back, but they would have been great for the cabinets).

We wound up using Cliffside Industries pulls on the fridge. They have them in the size that's on our cabinets also.

Gorgeous kitchen. Your white quartzite counters are glorious. I love my Bianco Antico counters, but if I knew how similar white quartzite was to marble (at least visually) it would have given me serious pause as to which to choose! Is it pricier than granite?

Wonderful job. The cabinets are so beautiful and work well with the blue paint.

Great kitchen we are in the proces sof a new design now adn just now started considering wide plank maple floors. can you tell me which brand you picked and how much they were per sq ft. Are they Enginered or solid?

I don't know how I missed your gorgeous kitchen when you first posted it. What a masterpiece! Your bs is so clever and creative. I'm so envious of your mudroom space. I finally now have (or will have when it's finally done) a tiny little spot for shoes, coats, hats, etc. by the back door. Can't wait!

But the best thing about your new kitchen is that quartzite! TDF! Wow. Congratulations, and may you and your quartzite have a beautiful life together!

Greg we got the floors at FastFloors.net They are
Somerset Specialty Collection Plank 5 Solid (Maple)
They were $5.15 SQ/FT. I will say that they show EVERYTHING though. We previously had a dark slate floor which showed nothing, so it's quite a transition for us. I adore the look of the maple, but it scores pretty low on the practical meter for me. I'm not sure I would do them again for that reason.

Breezygirl - thanks!! I agree - the quartzite was such a big splurge and I couldn't finish the laundry room to match the mudroom because of it, but I don't regret one penny. I would get the quartzite again in a heartbeat!

Hi Everybody,
I'm new here :)
We are doing a kitchen remodel and this kitchen looks very similar. The cabinets, their color, door handles are the same. We are going with bianco antico granite counters. We were doing oak floors, but decided on radiant heat and was told tile would be better for that.
My question is: what color tiles would work with this color combination?? Wood was so much easier to pick!
Thanks in advance

kimba615 - the island is 36 wide x 126 long. The kitchen is 166 wide except for the very end where you see the angled cabinet next to the fridge - that part is 178.

mtnfever - the windows are south facing - it's the sunny side of the house but we have a hill in the back. We moved into the kitchen at the end of October and so far it's been fine, but we are definately watching for the glare as summer comes. If the glare is too much we may either put sun shades (think Starbucks) or hone the countertops. We'll just have to see what happens in the summer.

momqs, glad I saw your kitchen! I love it! It has so many things similar to how I'm designing my kitchen, that I feel like I'm looking at my (almost) finished design. Mine will be very similar, except it is about 3 feet less across the width, so no island for me and my cabinet stain will be a little different and no glass door fronts. I will also have a bank of south facing windows on one side and a full wall of cabinets on the opposite side. AND I am doing white marble tile backsplash and white countertops! Love the bubbles very cute! May I ask where did you get your backsplash tile?

Although I don't have room for an island, I'm doing a peninsula on one end. I am curious about the seating part of your island. How much length left to right did you leave for your four stools? Also, how many inches is your overhang?

I really like your flooring and I saw you posted the info on that, except for the color. Which color did you go with? In your photo it almost looks like the tone I envisioned for my floor.

Loosey-goosey - there are plenty - do a search on "modern kitchen" and you'll see some very beautiful modern kitchens and if you look for "shaker" you may see some other contempoary kitchens.

kmmh - The small cubbies are 20 inches wide and the big cubby is 32.

The "bench" is 18" off the ground and the main part of the cubbies are 58" high. The shelf above is 13" high. We have two soffets there so we had to compromise on height and overall width but it hasn't been a big deal at all - we're just soo happy to have them!

momsqs - I have almost the exact same thing underway in my home. I have cherry cabinets with a very similar layout but the stools on the other side and not quite as large. I did limestone tile instead of hardwood. I also am doing white cabinets in a newly created mud room but a fraction of your size. Right now we are gutted and nothing is in but can't wait to have some pictures to show you all!
Glad to see yours come together so well.